One of the reactions to the Cowboys’ trade for quarterback Trey Lance was to wonder if Lance would serve as leverage in their ongoing contract extension talks with Dak Prescott in the coming weeks and months.
Prescott’s current contract is up after the 2024 season and he’s set to have a $59 million cap charge in the final year of his deal. There’s been plenty of chatter about an extension, but nothing has come to fruition and the Cowboys also have to position themselves to extend players like Micah Parsons and CeeDee Lamb in the near future.
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones shot down the Prescott angle immediately after the trade and said the trade was simply about acquiring young talent. On Tuesday, Jones said on 105.3 The Fan that the team is looking forward to having Prescott around for years to come when he was asked about continuing to negotiate with the quarterback into the season.
“You’re implying on discussion – those numbers on those contracts, those types of numbers, especially the big ones, you live with constantly, that’s always on your mind,” Jones said. “There’s never a time when it goes away because you’ve got to make the entire thing fit. So, it’s on the mind [with] a player decision in the middle of the year. It’s just a fundamental. We expect Dak to be with us a long time, and yeah, we’re always working around it with several machinations of numbers that would work.”
Until an agreement is reached, the possibility of the Cowboys moving in a different direction will always remain in place. The longer talks go on without a deal, the better the chances that they ultimately go that route.